Dell’Arte Honors Jane Hill With Lifetime Achievement Award

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Dell’Arte’s 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree Jane Hill

BLUE LAKE – As Dell’Arte International looks ahead to the 40th anniversary of its arrival in Blue Lake in 1974, DAI is proud and pleased to present the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award to Dell’Arte’s co-founder, Jane Hill. The ceremony will take place at 4 p.m on Saturday, June 29, followed by dinner and a performance of the Dell’Arte Company in Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors in DAI’s Rooney Amphitheatre.

At the ceremony, Jane Hill will announce the inauguration of the Jane Hill Scholarship Fund, to benefit student applicants to the Dell’Arte School with demonstrated financial need. Donations to the scholarship fund can be made even if one can’t attend the award ceremony.

Hill and her late husband, Carlo Mazzone-Clementi, founded Dell’Arte in Berkeley in 1971. In 1974, they bought the Oddfellows Hall in Blue Lake with the goal of starting a professional theatre company and a training school for actors. It’s still there! Hill has devoted her life to the arts and has worked at College of the Redwoods as director of Theatre and Chair of Humanities; as the CEO of Opera Omaha; as the Executive Director of the Sacramento Philharmonic, and as Director of the Dell’Arte School. Jane’s “grace under pressure, her business acumen, and her passion for the arts, have convinced even non-believers to support the arts,” said DAI’s Founding Artistic Director Joan Schirle. “But above all, it’s her wit and humor. This is a woman who has held many of her own birthday tailgate parties on her plot in the Blue Lake Cemetery!”

It is in this spirit that Hill has requested the women’s restroom to be christened “The JANE,” since she helped secure funds to renovate the original building – and the theater has already been named the CARLO. Naming opportunities are now in short supply, so DAI is putting out the word to Johns everywhere that a companion donation for the men’s restroom, “The JOHN,” is being sought.

This is the third Dell’Arte Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes individuals for their lifetime contribution to the arts and their community service as well as their long relationship to DAI. In 2008, the Award went to stage, film, and television actor, Rene Auberjonois, who was featured in the TV series Benson, as well as in the Star Trek series. In 2011 the Award was given to a duo, Lynne and Bob Wells, whose long careers as local actors have provided a shining example of lives as artists and supporters of the arts.

The Mad River Festival runs until Sunday, July 20 and offers events for all ages: The festival headliner The Comedy of Errors, late-night acrobatics, adult cabarets, a backyard show for kids, an Emmy award-winner, a Cirque Du Soleil performer, and the Humboldt Folklife Festival. The Mad River Festival is made possible by generous sponsorship by local businesses. 2013 Festival Producers include Pierson Building Center, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Wildberries Marketplace, Stephany Joy of RE/MAX Reality, and Chapala Café.